Foreign News by J. Couch

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 8, 1875

Foreign News.

By J. Couch

We were never so deeply interested in reading the foreign news as at the present time. The European nations are advancing so rapidly toward the great anticipated national struggle, and the war tension has become so great that it seems impossible that a general rupture can be much longer delayed. The pope and Bismarck are rapidly approaching each other, prepared for a deadly and final conflict. The new ecclesiastical laws of Germany are driving the Jesuits to desperation. Every mail brings news of advanced steps taken by these fierce uncompromising antagonists.

Germany demands that the new king of Spain define his position as to being controlled by the Jesuits, or by policy, independent of the pope’s dictation. She still echoes her demand that her marred honor, in the recent insult of her flag by Ultramontane pirates, shall be speedily repaired. She is about to demand that all her trusted sons in civil service shall take a particular oath of allegiance; which means loyalty or death. The political elements in Italy are like the pent-up, boiling, surging lava of her Vesuvius, ready to burst forth into a flame of destruction.

Austria is straining her credit to its utmost capacity to obtain money to bring her army up to the present European standard, and furnish it with the latest and most destructive scientific armor. Russia’s great Autocrat is beginning to boldly unroll his long-concealed programme, shaking his head significantly at England, and speaking defiantly to the sultan’s representative. England is profoundly desirous of peace, but she finds herself perfectly entangled in both the Eastern and Western snares; and if she attempts to relieve either foot, the other is fatally caught. If she arms to withstand the encroachments of Bishop Manning and the pope, thus supporting Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel, Russia is ready to wave her triumphant banner over all the East, laying her hand upon Constantinople and England’s vast possessions in India.

The last scratch of the bear, and menace of the old beast, has evidently aroused the lion to a sense of approaching danger, so that the regiments of the English army in India are ordered to be prepared to march at a moment’s warning. The Queen’s Premier exhorts his government to be prepared for an approaching unprecedented “religious war.” The Jesuitical party are evidently just as bloodthirsty as they were during the days of racks and fagots.

Read the history of Bismarck for the last few months. See how he has to be guarded night and day, to preserve him from the fatality of their poison and steel. Read of their recent bloody deeds in Mexico, Brazil, and other places, where priest-directed mobs have shed the blood of those who dare to open their lips against the proud mother of the harlot family.

It seems to us that the angel hand has written the “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” so plainly upon the Roman palace wall that every anointed Christian eye may read and correctly interpret it. God’s predictions and foreshadowing types turn the unerring index to this grand period of universal excitement and unprecedented preparation for world-wide revolution. All things portend a new era;—the passing away of the old, and the ushering in of a new earthly administration.

The great heart of every class of men upon the earth is throbbing with increasing restlessness, dissatisfied with the status of its own government and worship, and with that of other classes, and is seeking, with a determined purpose, to improve its own, and to overthrow all others. The Monarchists are straining the tension of their governments to the breaking point, to suppress the multitudinous classes who are combining and threatening to disrobe the old, effeminate dynasties of their prostituted sovereignty, in order to establish their royalty upon a more firm and secure basis than they now enjoy.

The papacy firmly believes that God has determined to make bare his arm immediately, and make the pope the absolute head of all earthly governments, as arbiter of both church and State. The Protestant church understands that this is the period appointed of God for her to triumph over all opposition, and become the ruling class of the world. The Greek church entertains the same views in relation to its destiny. Republicans, Internationalists, Communists, spiritualists, each class, everywhere, is determined to immediately improve its own condition by subduing and overturning all other classes who are in opposition.

Such a state of things cannot be protracted indefinitely; either this excitement and determination for a change must cease, or war and revolution must inevitably follow. Such great and powerful currents of human passions, of aspirations and revenge, never lose their velocity, as do the waters of a river quietly flowing into a lake or sea; but they inevitably increase, until they leap from some terrible precipice into the roaring confusion of the maddened waters below.

Reader, do you not see that these terrible currents have wonderfully increased within the last twelve months? We are evidently nearing the falls. The nations are “rushing like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them;” therefore, escape, O sinner; leap upon the rock which you are just passing, that you may be saved from the perdition into which you are now plunging. Wait not an hour; set your helm for the shore; catch the breeze just now; for a few moments’ delay may prove your eternal ruin.—J. Couch.